Assura a rare win for UK PLC over PE

There's usually only one winner when private equity has a PLC in its sights, so how come Primary Healthcare Properties won the battle for Assura?

Hello Rainmakers,

One of the most gripping takeover battles has concluded with a UK PLC beating off a robust bid by private equity.

How did it that happen?

Rainmakers is a reader-supported publication. Subscribers get two unique pieces a week and full access to our back catalogue of investigations, scoops, and insights, including updates from columnist The Secret Investor and interviews with entrepreneurs like this one. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a subscriber.

It was a takeover battle that seemed to have one inevitable conclusion.

Squaring up to take on Assura, a North West headquartered healthcare property investment business, were two sides, in what looked like a mismatch.

In one corner, a listed British PLC wanting to consolidate in its sector, Primary Healthcare Properties. In the other, a behemoth of the American private equity space, KKR, three initials that are known to send a chill down the spine of even the toughest business executive.

Formed as Kohlberg Kravis and Roberts, the firm was responsible for the 1988 leveraged buyout of American food giant Nabisco and at $25billion remained the largest buyout in corporate history for the next 17 years.

The deal was chronicled in a best selling book by Bryan Burrough and John Helyar called Barbarians at the Gate: The Fall of RJR Nabisco, and later made into a television movie starring James Garner.

Once KKR, with co-investor Stonepeak, made their play to buy Assura, many assumed it would go the way these things tend to.

Instead, PHP has won the day. As the valid acceptances filtered through for the rival offers to buy Assura on Tuesday, it was clear that by close of play PHP had secured 62.93% of the total for their offer.